Community Activist and Artist to Launch Exhibition to Celebrate Women's History Month

    SILVER SPRING, MD, February 25, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- In the wake of Women's History Month, local Community Activist and Artist Alyscia Cunningham is providing a unique experience for women to reign on self-appreciation and beauty after a daunting pandemic. On March 19, 2021, at 10:00 a.m., Cunningham will unleash "I Am Not My Hair", an exclusive exhibition at the Sandy Spring Museum located at 17901 Bentley Rd, Sandy Spring, MD. The exhibition is an initiative aimed at changing the perception of industry-standard beauty while creating inclusion and accessibility for those who experience hearing loss and blindness.

The exhibition will include custom art pieces, a documentary film, and a photography book that includes interviews of women who have experienced alopecia (the partial or complete absence of hair from areas of the body where it normally grows) due to health-related conditions. Additionally, Cunningham is partnering with artist John Amanam, a sculptor artist in Nigeria who also creates hyper-realistic prosthetic ears, noses, fingers, toes, and legs for amputees all over the world. Amanam will create two reliefs of two women who have passed away due to complications in 2019, and one of herself to accompany her artist statement.

According to Cunningham, this exhibition will be beneficial in two ways, "The exhibition will tackle one of the pertinent issues that were expressed by the blind community, which was the lack of accessibility in art exhibitions and the other is the underrepresentation of women who have different beauty standards that are usually portrayed in art and the media," said Cunningham, "I feel obligated to make sure everyone has the opportunity to be included in the experience of my art and I am now creating a solution."

Cunningham was able to fund the I Am Not My Hair exhibit, raising over $35,000 to support efforts by hosting fundraising house parties, grants, and crowdfunding campaigns with iFundwomen.co. The exhibit will begin during Sandy Spring Museum's normal business hours and will end on September 5, 2021. The facility and the show will be highly accessible for both blind and hearing loss participants. For more information, visit https://www.sandyspringmuseum.org/morethan/ or email [email protected].

About Alyscia Cunningham

Based in Silver Spring, Maryland, Alyscia Cunningham is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, filmmaker, and photographer who contributes to National Geographic, Discovery Channel, America Online, and the Smithsonian Institution. Her work focuses on changing the dialogue around beauty standards for women through documentary film and unaltered photography. After the success of her first book, Feminine Transitions: A Photography Celebration of Natural Beauty, she continued to inspire social change with her new book and documentary film, I Am More Than My Hair.

Virtual Exhibit Programs

Art and Accessibility: How do we make art accessible? Exhibiting artist Alyscia Cunningham confronts this question in her innovative exhibition, I Am More Than My Hair. Join her in a virtual walkthrough of her ongoing show followed by a panel discussion with art and accessibility experts Becky Emmert, Cheryl Fogle-Hatch, Cheryl Green, Julie Hein, Marguerite Woods, and Robin Lynne Marquis who are working to change the way we experience art.

Film Screening: A virtual screening of Alyscia Cunningham's film I Am More Than My Hair, telling the stories of women who have lost their hair and exploring the meaning of beauty. The screening will be followed by a virtual discussion with Ms. Cunningham.

# # #